Law & Order: FRU Forgotten Realms Unit
by Kendris
Summary: NYPD's finest take over a new beat...


_Don't ask how they got there…don't ask where this came from…it's been bouncing around inside my head for weeks, and I had to get rid of it. Just read & tell me if I should continue…._

OOO

"Look, I'm telling you: there ain't no beholders in the sewers!" Balin speared a wad of paper with the stick in his right hand and stuffed it into the sack slung over his left shoulder.

"But I saw it!" Kail insisted, bending to scoop a pile of horse manure from the paving stones into the cart that he pushed. In the slums around the Copper Coronet, where both men lived, it would have been left to be trodden into the dirt of the street, but here in the Government District of Athkatla, appearances had to be maintained. "Big thing…eyes all over it…what else could it have been?"

Balin rolled his eyes. "A big rat…just like the 'mind flayer' you saw last year when you were drinkin' on the job."

"I wasn't drinkin'!" the shorter man exclaimed indignantly. "And that wasn't no rat, neither! It was as close to me as you are…you think I couldn't tell a rat that close?"

_You couldn't tell it was your own mother that close after two pints,_ Balin thought irritably, wishing he'd been assigned to work with anyone but this lunatic. "Look, for the last time…there ain't no –"

"HELP!"

Balin jerked his head up, startled by the cry. He turned his head from side to side, but this early on a weekend, there was little activity on the streets.

"HELP! Someone help!" The cry came again, and this time he was able to pinpoint it as coming from overhead. Looking up, he saw a man leaning out the window of one of the meticulously maintained private homes that belonged to the wealthiest and most influential individuals in Athkatla.

The man, wearing what appeared to be a nightshirt, stared wildly down at the two street cleaners. "Call the guard!" he demanded hoarsely. "My daughter's been murdered!"

OOOOO

Detective Lenny Briscoe paused on the steps, waiting for his partner to finish questioning the two street cleaners who had made the initial report. Glancing up at the gleaming marble facade on the mansion that towered over him, he gave a cynical shake of his head. In this town, the wealthy had just as many problems as the poor, the main difference being that the wealthy could buy their way out of punishment…and keep the news of their scandals quiet. This was not the first time the guard had been called to this pristine looking home…but it _was_ the first time the homicide unit had been needed.

Detective Ed Green sent the two men on their way with a friendly pat on the back, then joined his partner on the steps. "They didn't see anything," he reported, not sounding surprised. "Just heard the guy yelling for help from the window."

Briscoe nodded. It was too much to hope that the murderer had been seen and recognized…but that never stopped him from hoping. Stepping up to the door, he knocked sharply. Moments later, the door was opened by a mousy looking fellow who eyed them suspiciously.

"Detectives Briscoe and Green. Athkatlan Police, Homicide," Briscoe informed him, flashing his badge. The man peered at it as though suspecting a counterfeit, then nodded curtly, stepping aside and motioning them in hastily, closing the door behind them after glancing furtively outside.

"Lord Delryn wants this kept as quiet as possible," the man informed them primly. The two detectives exchanged a glance, and Green could all but hear Briscoe's thought: _A little late to keep it quiet after he announced it from the window._ Neither man voiced the thought, however; such comments had a habit of making their way to Headquarters, where Van Buren was notoriously intolerant of detectives careless enough to make them.

"Who was here when she was found?" Green asked.

"Just myself and Lord Delryn," the man replied. "I'm the butler," he added, before he could be asked.

"Your name?" Briscoe asked, pulling a small pad and stylus from his belt pouch.

"Daris Alstrom," he replied, smoothing his thinning grey hair nervously. "I've worked for the family for thirty years."

Briscoe nodded as he wrote down the name, then glanced around the spacious interior of the mansion, large rooms opening off of the entry hall they stood in and a graceful double staircase arching upward to the second floor. "Pretty big place for just one person to keep up with," he remarked. "Any other staff have access?"

"No," Alstrom said with a nervous shake of his head. "There's just been me for the last year. Lord Delryn has experienced some difficulties in his business…temporary, of course," he added hastily, looking around anxiously, as though fearful that he might be overheard. "He blinked suddenly, staring at the two detectives in alarm. "Surely…you don't think that Lord Delryn…or myself…would have…"

"Just routine questions, sir," Green assured him, although the man's antsy behavior was beginning to set off alarms. "Where is the body?"

The man nodded, seeming mollified by the detective's answer. "Upstairs, in her bedroom." He shook his head, his eyes tearing. "I can't believe it. Lady Moira was such a gentle soul; who could possibly have wanted to harm her?"

"Any other family?" Briscoe asked as they began climbing the stairs.

"A son…but he hasn't visited in years," the butler replied. "He is a squire in the Order of the Most Radiant Heart, and he travels frequently."

Green stifled a groan. _Not the holy twits._ Getting an interview with one of their number was a nightmare of bureaucracy; their squires weren't permitted to pass gas without permission from their superiors. _There goes the rest of the weekend._ Briscoe's sour face made it clear that he had reached the same conclusion. "Lord Delryn's wife?"

"Lady Delryn died several years ago, the gods watch over her soul," Alstrom replied as they reached the landing.

Behind the butler's back, Green shot a questioning glance at Briscoe, who nodded. It had been Lord Delryn's treatment of his wife that had led to Briscoe responding to several domestic abuse calls when he had been a member of the regular guard detachment. "What did she die of?"

"The physicians said that her heart gave out," the butler said simply, stopping in front of a door that stood ajar. "The coroner is already here," he added, as the sound of activity drifted from the room.

_I think we could have figured that out ourselves, _Briscoe thought as they stepped into the room to see half a dozen white-coated gnomes crawling around the room, eyes inches from the carpet. Each one wore an ungainly looking set of goggles and carried a set of tweezers. Every few seconds, one would stop, peering down intently, and use the tweezers to transfer some minute bit of debris into an evidence bag.

"What can you tell us, Jan?" Briscoe asked, stepping around the searchers on the floor to address the gnome who stood beside the bed with a large duffel, peering down at the corpse of a young woman. The butler remained by the door, peering nervously into the room.

"Detectives!" Jan Janssen, Chief Medical Examiner of Athkatla, peered up at the two humans with pleasure, as though they were meeting at a favorite restaurant, instead of a murder scene. "So good to see you!" Glancing down at the body before him, he sighed regretfully, though his face, as always, never quite managed to look less than jovial.

"Very little of substance at this point, I'm afraid," he replied. "Human female, Caucasian, 19 years of age and – I'm sorry to say – as dead as my dear Aunt Hattie. I was so sorry to hear that she had died…she made the most wonderful turnip casseroles…"

"The victim, Jan," Briscoe reminded him, used to the ME's mental meanderings after years of working with him. Sooner or later, a member of the gnome's family would appear in virtually any discussion. Keeping him on track was an art form.

"Oh…yes. Sorry. Cause of death appears to be manual strangulation," he continued, pointing at the livid bruises on the young woman's throat. She had been beautiful, Briscoe noted clinically, but her blue eyes were glazed in death, her fair skin grey, her swollen tongue protruding between her lips. "She appears to have been attacked in her sleep, with no opportunity to fight back. No obvious skin or fibers beneath the fingernails," Jan added, lifting a slender arm to place a bag over the hand, preserving any trace evidence that might have been left behind. "I'll have our mages run the identification spells on the fiber evidence when we get back." Bending down and reaching inside his duffel, he pulled out an elongated device that looked as though it belonged in one of the rougher brothels in the slum district.

"My latest invention!" the gnome proclaimed proudly. "A core temperature probe. In just a moment, I can have the probable time of death for you. Nils, if you could help me turn her over," he called to one of the gnomes searching the floor.

"Just put it in the report, Jan," Briscoe said quickly, stepping away from the bed with Green close behind. Stepping carefully around the gnomes, they returned to the hallway. "We need to speak with Lord Delryn now," Briscoe told Alstrom, whose skin had taken on a definite green cast as he stared at the probe in Janssen's hands.

The butler nodded and swallowed hard, looking away with a shudder. "He's in his study. He's absolutely devastated, poor man. These last few years have been so horrible for him. First his wife dying, then his son abandoning the family, then his business failing – temporarily, of course," he added hastily, looking around nervously. "More bad luck than any man should have to endure."

Briscoe nodded, hoping his lack of sympathy for the wife-beating bastard wasn't showing. "Looks like it's his daughter's luck that ran out," he quipped sardonically.


End file.
